The present invention relates to a pull-on disposable wearing article for absorption and containment of bodily discharges.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 1997-56747A discloses a pull-on disposable wearing article comprising a liquid-pervious topsheet facing a wearer's body, a liquid-impervious backsheet facing away from the wearer's body and a liquid-absorbent core interposed between these top- and backsheets wherein front and rear waist regions are connected to each other in vicinities of lateral margins of waist's opposite lateral zones by means of a plurality of heat-sealing spots intermittently arranged in a longitudinal direction so as to form a waist-hole and a pair of leg-holes.
This wearing article is provided with a plurality of waist surroundable elastic members extending in a waist circumferential direction and attached to a waist's upper end portion in the front waist region so as to be contractible in a waist-circumferential direction. Between the waist surroundable elastic members and the leg-holes, the wearing article is further provided with a plurality of auxiliary elastic members extending in the waist-circumferential direction so as to be contractible in the waist-circumferential direction. The peripheral portions of the leg-holes are also provided with a plurality of leg surroundable elastic members, respectively, so as to be contractible in the leg-circumferential direction.
The waist surroundable elastic members and the leg surroundable elastic members are interposed between the tops- and the backsheets and bonded to respective inner surfaces of these sheets by means of hot melt adhesive. Transversely opposite lateral zones of the respective auxiliary elastic members are also interposed between the top and back sheet and secured to the inner surfaces of these sheets by means of a hot melt adhesive. Intermediate portions of the respective auxiliary elastic members extending across the core are interposed between the backsheet and the core and secured to the backsheet by means of a hot melt adhesive.
This wearing article has advantageous effects that a distance by which each pair of the adjacent auxiliary elastic members are spaced apart from each other is smaller in the vicinities of the longitudinally opposite ends of the core than in the other zone. Such a unique arrangement is effective to keep the wearing article in close contact with the wearer's waist in the vicinities of the longitudinally opposite ends of the core and thereby to prevent leakage of bodily discharges from occurring in the vicinities of the ends of the core.
In the wearing article disclosed in the above-cited Publication, the auxiliary elastic members are secured to the top and back sheets while these elastic members are stretched in the waist-circumferential direction at a predetermined stretching ratio, so contraction of the auxiliary elastic members in the waist-circumferential direction causes the top and back sheet also to contract inward in the waist-circumferential direction. In this article, however, each of the auxiliary elastic members having been stretched can not restore its initial non-stretched dimension although these auxiliary elastic members contract inward in the waist-circumferential direction because contraction of the auxiliary elastic members is restricted by the presence of adhesive. Thus the regions of the top and back sheets having the auxiliary elastic members therein are stretchable and contractible within a substantially narrower range than the range within which the auxiliary elastic members themselves are stretchable and contractible. This means that the range within which the auxiliary elastic members are stretchable and contractible can not be effectively utilized.